It was widely reported on Valentine’s Day that hip hop artist Tim Dog passed away at the age of 46 due to complications from diabetes. However, an arrest warrant has now been issued for the ‘late’ rapper for faking his own death to avoid charges of grand larceny.
Tim Dog was best known for his 1991 track ‘Fuck Compton’ – an attack on Dr Dre and NWA which helped spark the US east coast vs west coast battles of the 1990s.
Last month a woman named Esther Pilgrim claimed that Dog, real name Timothy Blair, had faked his death to avoid paying tens of thousands of dollars in court ordered debts. When his death was reported, he was in the process of paying off $19,000 to Pilgrim as part of his conviction for grand larceny.
Pilgrim met Blair on an online dating platform and they quickly started a romantic relationship. Before long convinced her to lend him money to restart his music career, swindling her out of $32,000 of her savings.
Pilgrim was just one of many victims of Blair’s online dating scam, for which he was eventually charged with grand larceny. He was reported dead in February at the age of 46. But all of the stories announcing the death linked back to a report from The Source, a popular online Hip-hop music magazine. However, the original article has mysteriously disappeared without a trace.
Steven Jubera, the county prosecutor handling the case, has said that Pilgrim’s restitution payments stopped coming in around the same time Blair was reported dead. The prosecutor has since found no death certificate or any proof of where or how Blair died, so he has issued an arrest warrant, alleging the rapper has not paid compensation from the 2011 grand larceny conviction. A judge approved the warrant.
“I have no proof that he’s dead, so I have to presume that he’s alive,” Mr Jubera said.
The Bronx rapper was sentenced in August 2011 to 14 days in prison and five years probation for swindling $32,000 from a woman who met him on an online dating site four years earlier. He was ordered to pay about $19,000 dollars in restitution.
